During the month of July, UnSmoke Systems gallery space was the site of a partially restored home, an exhibition in transition, an open-studio for the painting of several large portraits, and a space to tarry and talk about home and memory.

Come share a memory & photograph of home with me at UnSmoke Systems [1137 Braddock Ave., Braddock, PA]. In exchange, I will give you a drawn portrait of yourself at the closing reception three weeks later.

—Misty Morrison

“The Family System: ‘I ain’t got no home in this world anymore’” - UnSmoke Systems, Braddock, PA. July 11th, 2018.

“The Family System: ‘I ain’t got no home in this world anymore’” - UnSmoke Systems, Braddock, PA. July 11th, 2018.

Oblivion

The paintings which comprise “Oblivion” developed out of a previous form, entitled “If You See Something…” They were, and are, a meditation on witnessed experience, subjectivity, and interpersonal relationships (how they form us as subjects, individually and collectively). The figures represented within them are an embodiment-- a visual manifestation of an abusive relationship where the abuse wasn’t seen-- as well as an attempt to relate to the experience of abuse, thereby forming my own subjective understanding of it.

It is a group of paintings to which I knew I would return after time had grown between the aforementioned experience, the creation of the work, and the present. This exhibition is the form of that return-- a moment of reflection after time has begun its own process of curation-- where what is forgotten and what is remembered inform what is present.

If You See Something...

Majestic Galleries, Nelsonville OH - April, 2015

Statement

“If you see something...” represents a transition in subjectivity from the passive experience of seeing into an active experience of saying. The experiences of the principal characters of a witnessed event are here represented as internalized experience. These characters, themselves the embodiment of an attempt at balance between active and passive roles, are inhabited in the form of self-portraiture as a means to gain a subjective understanding of the experience of, and impulse towards, abuse within intimate relationships.

The group of paintings which comprise “If you see something…” are part of a larger body of work exploring interpersonal relationships and interactions and the ways in which they inform both individual and collective subjectivity.